I'm coming back to you today with a bit o a progress report of the first month of betatesting. As you know, Numina entered the Beta phase last month and has since been under the scrutiny of multiple testers.
Testing Progress
Over 200 Bugs have already been found and fixed 😲 I can tell you it was a lot of work! There were some really funny bugs as well, mainly when stuff went wrong during cutscenes or when the player was able to go places they weren't supposed to go. There was also some rather complicated sequence-breaking stuff in the 2nd chapter where you could trigger events earlier than you're meant to.
But even with all this progress, testing is far from over. Currently only 3 storyroutes have been tested and I'll also need to cover the other ones. Since the game will also release on Linux and MacOS, these versions will have to be tested as well and then there's also the English version.
Translation Progress
My translation efforts are making good progress. From the ~10000 lines, just a few short under 5000 have been translated. It takes a lot of time and most of my attention is currently on fixing bugs from the beta.
As soon as the English translation is ready the beta will open up to more people which will also make it easier to test it on the other platforms mentioned above.
If you want to be informed as soon as the translation is ready, join the official Numina Discord! Once again, I want to thank everyone for their interest and support. We're almost there!
October Dev Update - ALPHA VERSION FINISHED!!
Hello you lovely people,
I come with a big announcement this month: Numina finally reached the Beta stage! YESSSSS! This means my initial playthrough has been finished and we enter now the final long testing phase before release! 🥳🥳🥳
It's a very exciting time as at this stage, "outside" people will get a chance to playtest the game. Initially this will be a closed Beta as only the German version is ready to be tested. I hope we clear the biggest bugs in this initial round, while I'm hard at work translating almost 90k words on 10k lines from German into English 😣 Once the translation is done and the first German-speaking testers are through the game I'll open the Beta up to interested testers. Once we get there I'll make another announcement on how to apply for testing. The only thing you need is a Steam-Account. And if you haven't already:
Release Date I know this is something a lot of you are interested in. My initial goal was to release in Q4 2021. But as it's already the end of October I don't think it will be realistic to get the game out this year. Translating alone will take me more than a month, even if I translate 200 lines a day. And on top of that there's testing 27 hours of game content (with multiple branching plotlines) which will probably also take at least a month for each tester to ensure the game will be playable and worth the wait for everyone.
My new aim is to target Q1 2022. Please follow this page or join the official Numina Discord to get any updates on the release and betatest! Thanks for your understanding, patience and continued interest in Numina!
September Dev Update - Relationship Advice ❤
Hello everyone!
With today's update I wanted to focus a bit less on the usual status report and talk more about a central mechanic of Numina: The relationships between the characters and how it actually affects gameplay.
Through the 4th Wall into Shawn's Head
The central relationship in the game is obviously your bond to Shawn. If you're new around here (welcome!! 😉) one defining feature about Numina is that you as the player are a character in the game itself - as a mysterious voice in Shawn's head. Shawn is the protagonist or at least shares the spot with you. In-game you're being referred to as a guardian spirit.
You interact with Shawn through player choices and he, along with the other characters, react to your decisions. They can agree or disagree with your views which will influence the strength of their relationship bond.
This is indicated by a icon that pop ups on the right of the screen (see in the screenshot above, this can be turned off in the game's settings if you wish to). Also "Manu" is my guardian spirit's name. If you got confused about a new character you never heard of before 😁
C-C-Combo!
Shawn and you might share the center stage of the story. But the other party members are just as important. Even though they can't directly hear your voice you'll often get put in situations where you can influence Shawn's decision:
But now the central question: How does this impact gameplay? One thing I've always loved about some RPGs are Combo-Attacks. Two characters team up and combine their moves for an unique and cool-looking attack.
Improving these relationships not only unlocks new stroy paths (and maybe some romance options... possibly? 🥰) but unlocks these powerful attacks that get stronger, the stronger your bond to that character is. It was important to me to not only have the relationships impact the story but also feed into combat.
Alpha Version Progress
I just finished polishing & playtesting the 1st chapter... so 2 more to go. But I can tell you that I'm growing more confident about the end product. It's a bit daunting thinking about all of you lovely people being part of Numina's history, waiting for the full release. I don't want to disappoint you and deliver something that's worth the wait.
I also had a little suprise at the end of the 1st chapter... It actually took me a bit over 7 hours to finish and I only did a few of the available sidequests 👀
So loads of content waiting for you! The other chapters aren't necessarily the same length, but I guess the full game will weigh in around 15-20 hours. Like... An actual game! 😂 Feels surreal that I actually did all of this.
